Bike Riding!

Alice is getting tall enough that her feet reach the pedals of her bike, and she's actually getting pretty good now! Maybe next year Daddy will no longer have to pull her everywhere in the Chariot...

Bounce House place

There's a gymnastics center near us that has lots of trampolines and an indoor jungle-gym, etc. This has become a favorite place to go when it's too cold to play outside. Alice is getting good at swinging on the rings, and she loves to go through the gigantic bounce house. It is all even better when a Grandpa leads the way!

birthday fun!

January, February and March are rich times for birthdays in the family. While Alice hasn't been able to help blow out candles for all the birthdays, she has taken the opportunity to help with several. She has even started singing "happy birthday" at frequent intervals! Here are some belated birthday cake highlights....

"Bucky happy, Alice sad"

At the last hockey game, we got a chance to go down and meet Bucky Badger! Alice was very excited about this at first, and wanted to give him a hug, she said. But when we actually got up close, she burst into tears. Bucky, like most of the big dogs in our neighborhood, is apparently most appreciated from a distance!

Hockey!

Alice LOVES going to Wisconsin Badger hockey games. She likes the ritual of getting macaroni-and-cheese pizza beforehand, showing her ticket to the security guard as we find our seats, watching cartoons on the JumboTron, and jumping on the Bounce House they have at the arena between periods. But as she tells us over and over again, her favorite parts are definitely "Bucky Badger, the band, and ouchies!"

'Ouchies' are what she calls it whenever a hockey player gets checked into the boards or a fight breaks out. Daddy also enjoys all the 'ouchies.' Mommy, however, doesn't think that cheering for 'ouchies' is a good thing, and has to explain to Alice that it's not very nice to crash into someone else, and that we should ask to make sure the hockey players are ok.

Izzy takes Alice for a walk

We're not sure who was in charge here, or who had their tongue out farther!

Shoveling

Despite a couple days of 60degree weather, we recently had a pretty good snowstorm. Although her heart is in the right place -- and it's fun to have her try to help out -- Alice spent all of her time shoveling snow back ONTO the sidewalk, making more work for Daddy!